Tarsier Studios' Reanimal Introduces a Tense and Terrifying Journey

With the success of the Little Nightmares series, Tarsier Studios is looking now to their next project utilizing Unreal Engine 5. The just-revealed Renimal is an all-new experience from the team known for their atmospheric and mysterious games, meant to appeal to both horror and adventure fans alike.

The game is currently in development for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series with a release penned in for some time in the future. We had a chance to preview the concept behind Reanimal ahead of its announcement as well as learn more about it from key members of the development team.

Whilst we didn’t get to play or see a live demonstration for Reanimal, the folks at Tarsier did have a trailer on hand, and in it we were able to catch a glimpse of what this new game is about.

Reanimal is billing itself as a co-op adventure about two kids trapped in a hellish version of their home island. They’ll have to go on a quest to rescue their friends, and to do that they must work together to survive untold horrors.

Reanimal is a fully playable game in single player and local or online co-op, with an emphasis on exploring by land and sea, as well as on tension and atmosphere. The idea here is that horror is best experienced with friends, so the playable characters in Reanimal will operate on a shared camera and never be apart.

You’ll have to cooperate to survive in a world that focuses on a grounded, but minimalist approach to co-op gameplay. Reanimal is first and foremost about the horror. It’s mysterious, tense, atmospheric. There are distorted, twisted monsters and locations.

All of this is primed to build on Tarsier’s strengths as a studio.

Another aspect of Reanimal is the adventure through a fragmented narrative, as well as non-linear areas to explore by land and sea. All of this culminates in the main characters – kids who are both siblings and orphans whose shared past is at the center stage of the narrative.

Other themes in Reanimal focus on the animalistic monsters, as well as violence.

Speaking with the developers, we learned that the basis for Reanimal sort of revolves around the idea of say, taking The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and Silent Hill and smashing them together. There’s a sense of adventure with a thick dread layered on top of it.

As we saw in the trailer, Reanimal will feature voice acting, and some cutscenes. But don’t be mistaken – Reanimal is not a cinematic-driven game. Instead, these scenes will compliment everything else, and give people different avenues about what is going on. There’s not going to be a focus on exposition.

In Reanimal, you’ll choose from one of two characters – a brother and sister – at the start, and while they do play similarly to each other, they also serve as a vehicle for the co-op experience. It’s through them that a shared quest for redemption takes root, despite their dire circumstances.

The dark world of Renimal features an appropriately moody art style as well. Smoky blues and dim lighting dot the landscape, but there’s also elements that stand out such as the bright neon of a sign, or the rear lights of a car. This contrast between cold and warm colors creates the duality of horror and hope the team is aiming for.

From what little was shown so far, Reanimal does look like the type of game to satisfy those who enjoy the horror game genre, as well as anyone who likes exploration and adventure. The co-op element in particular seems to be the most eye-catching, with the potential for shared experiences either at home on the couch or online.

There are not a lot of games doing that these days so if Reanimal can pull it off in a way that keeps people glued to the screen, they might really have something here. That coupled with the interesting atmosphere, creative animal designs, and the idea of a horror game that might not all be completely scary, there’s a lot of room for Reanimal to appeal to more than just the genre’s usual fans.

In any case, we’ll just have to see, but so far, this sort of evolution of Little Nightmares seems well on its way to at least differentiating itself from those experiences.

TechRaptor was invited to an event to preview the announcement of Reanimal by the publisher.